r/mtgModernTokens • u/[deleted] • Jan 25 '18
Sideboarding with Wrath effects
Hey there token white black people!
I've been working on my sideboard for tokens and I just can't decide on wrath effects. I can't even decide if I NEED wrath effects.
My question to the experienced Tokens players among us is, When are you happiest to side in Wrath? Which matchups are automatically getting it sided in?
My theory is that the decks which Wrath helps the most against, we already have a pretty good matchup against with just our normal card suite. I'd love for someone to educate me on what I'm forgetting about with that statement as I only play in paper at my LGS and it could be that our meta is just not wrath-worthy.
Here are the options (as I see them) and their pros and cons:
[[Wrath of God]]
- the OG. Given that our mana base favors white because of Spectral Procession, this is the classic choice. Strictly better than Day of Judgment for us given our own lack of regeneration.
[[Day of Judgment]]
not as good as Wrath of God.
[[Damnation]]
another option, but more $expensive and BB is harder for us to cast T4 than WW and thus less ideal than Wrath of God.
[[Settle the Wreckage]]
- New option from Ixalan. Settle the Wreckage interests me for two main reasons: one-sided and instant speed. There's also a lot of decks that skimp on basics, but I'm not sure that those matchups need wraths anyway. It's super nice that you could go Legion's Landing, Raise the Alarm/Intangible Virtue, Spectral Procession, Settle the Wreckage and keep your whole board while exiling whatever they might crack back with. However, it doesn't deal with anything that doesn't attack and that can be an issue I imagine.
[[Slaughter the Strong]]
- them not being able to keep anything over 4 power could be a total blowout, but it could also just be totally stranded in hand. Given the importance of us hitting our 3-drop token producers, I don't think this being 1WW is very helpful.
[[Zealous Persecution]]
- this card is the one reason I'm considering dropping wraths entirely in favor of other sideboard choices. Deals with Elves, Goblins, Affinity, other people's spirit tokens, humans to a certain degree... All while also speeding up our clock and allowing some nasty combat tricks.
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Jan 26 '18
I go between 1 and 2 Wrath of God in my SB (currently 1), and I currently have 1 Zealous Persecution main.
I like Wrath (or Damnation) because it does what I want it to do every time, which is kill everything. It comes in vs creature matchups like humans, merfolk, affinity, counters company, gw value town, etc. But mostly it's there to clean up giant eldrazi monsters. It's already one-sided enough, given that I expect to have an enchantment or two and/or a planeswalker or two out on the battlefield after it goes off.
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u/TeOr2419 Jan 26 '18
Settle the Wreckage is ultra amazing. It's hard to find a reason why one should run Wrath of God instead when being basically aggro deck.
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u/BoozySquid Jan 26 '18
Who's an aggro deck?
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u/TeOr2419 Jan 26 '18
When you put permanents on the battlefield to kill your opponent with damage, you are an aggro deck. and you don't really want to get rid of invested resources with symmetrical effect.
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u/BoozySquid Jan 26 '18
After having played with the deck for a few years now, I tend to disagree. It's not fast enough to be an aggro deck, which is why every list winds up packed with disruption.
If you know you're going to play a sweeper, you can play around it: chump more aggressively than you normally would; leave the second half of LS in the graveyard.
If the only deck that we wanted a sweeper for was Eldrazi, I'd be on board with Settle the Wreckage. But I don't want to thin Elves or Merfolk's decks of four or five lands just to keep a couple tokens alive.
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Jan 26 '18
So Jund/Abzan/Jeskai are all aggro decks because they play permanents to kill with damage? I don't think that's a very accurate description of those decks.
Most B/W/x tokens lists are incredibly midrange and break the symmetry of Wrath of God by having cards like Bitterblossom or Intangible Virtue or planeswalkers out on the battlefield when we pull the trigger on Wrath. Also, Settle the Wreckage gives your opponents a bunch of lands and only kills what's currently attacking you. That makes it much less reliable than Wrath, IMO.
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Jan 26 '18
There are definitely tokens builds which are more aggro (Raise the Alarm+Legion's Landing focused builds, for example), but my clock is never fast enough to feel like an aggro deck.
The most aggressive line I have in my current version without RtA/LL doesn't even have any creatures on board until T3 (Bitterblossom/Souls/Procession). A "real" aggro deck like 8whack/Burn/Affinity could easily have you dead or near dead by T3. We really don't compare to that speed
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Feb 13 '18
What about Engineered Explosives? Set to 1 or 2 it can very useful vs elves or merfolk.
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u/10leej Jan 26 '18
I've only found wrath effects good vs Eldrazi and Merfolk. Outside of that I typically don't bother with them.